With this in mind I received a couple of interesting leaks this week. Every year or two the president of M.D. Anderson conducts “The Big Survey” of the institution’s nearly 19,000 employees.

One of these sources sent me a copy of the survey, with the following comment about it:

Basically, a huge waste of time, as most MDACC employees do not feel that it is truly anonymous, even though this is run by an outside vendor, and stated to be anonymous. One of the problems is that we have to list our departmental code number, and of course, if one states they are an Associate Prof from a relatively small Dept, it would be easy to guess where negative comments came from. Even so, as you can see, trust is a major issue at MDACC.

At the end of this blog entry I’ve attached a full copy of the internal survey. In any case, before discussing these results, it’s important to note that this survey was administered before the controversies outlined above became public.

Nevertheless, as my source indicates, they do indicate trust is an issue.

The image below shows that, among the 200 or so respondents in the President’s Office, only 43 percent agree with the statement, “Overall, there is a free exchange of views in this institution; people are not afraid to say what they think.”

The BIG Survey. (M.D. Anderson)

In the same image we can see that about two-thirds of respondents agreed with the statement that they felt safe at work to do or say what they think is best for the institution.

What reasons did the third who didn’t agree with this statement give? The image below shows the breakdown.

The BIG Survey. (M.D. Anderson)

Finally we have a slide from the same survey, but it only shows responses from faculty members. Of note is question 46, which indicates that 37 percent of faculty members would leave if they could get a comparable position at another university.

The source who sent this noted, “And what happens to the thousands of patients who are cared for by such docs? Of course, other docs would be assigned those patients, but the continuity of care and trust is lost.”

The BIG Survey (M.D. Anderson)

Of course perhaps people who would leave don’t like Houston. As was in plain evidence this week, our summers can get a tad hot. Nevertheless M.D. Anderson is considered a destination institution. It ranks no. 1 on U.S. News and World’s report on top U.S. cancer hospitals. It’s a place where the best of the best in cancer work.

In a letter to employees DePinho put a positive spin on the results. “Overall, I think the survey results are very good,” he wrote.

DePinho addressed the trust issue. “Some of you still don’t feel it’s safe to say what you think,” he wrote. “And the majority of those who feel that way say they believe what they say won’t matter. Let me assure you that’s not the case. Your opinions do matter very much.”

It’s unfortunate the survey was taken before the controversies broke out. It’s also unfortunate that some more pointed questions couldn’t be asked, such as:

How high are faculty concerns about conflicts-of-interest, cronyism and favoritism?

How do faculty members feel about DePinho’s IACS recruits making double the salary of M.D. Anderson faculty of similar rank and experience?

How do faculty members feel about DePinho’s grand moonshot claims to cure five cancers in five years?

As another insider told me, “The bottom line is that the questionnaire addresses general issues and misses out on many key concerns. What is clear is that the vast majority of faculty are very unhappy about the way things are going at M.D. Anderson, yet this barely shows up in the survey. But this is not surprising given the way it is structured.”